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8/6/2007

Tormented Skin

DF2 Gallery, Los Angeles

Zhang Huan, Zhu Ming, Liu Jin

Tormented Skin, featuring works by Zhang Huan, Zhu Ming and Liu Jin will be on view at DF2 Gallery, Los Angeles from June 9th through July 7th. The photographs and video installation that comprise the exhibition address the notions of isolation and communication through the artists' placement of their own bodies in physically extreme conditions. Through these physical experiences, the artists draw our attention to the possibility of transformation, both at an individual and social level.

In works such as Skin and 12 Square Meters, Zhang Huan (born in 1963, Henan Province, China), through an exaggerated economy of means, explores ideas of rebellion and individuality, and engages in social criticism through a masochistic blend of self-denial and meditation. The strength of the individual effort is considered here in the light of the challenges presented by the drive for economic progress and socio-political control.

Zhu Ming's (born in 1972, Wunan Province, China) video performance Bubble presents the artist floating naked on the ocean surface inside a bubble consisting of a thin plastic skin with only a tube permitting enough air inside to sustain his breath. The womb-like vessel, the determination of the sea's current, and references to Asian traditions of honoring the dead combine to provide a lyrical yet disturbing examination of the individual's life experience. In this performance, the artist's external suffering is transformed into a sense of inner peace.

The Angel series by Liu Jin (born in 1971, Jiangsu Province, China) demonstrates extreme physical endurance. Using a language similar to cinematography, Liu produces dramatic tension with his own body disguised as an angel with a pair of bloody wings on his back dangling from a building or a tree for an extensive period time. The angel appears in urban settings, amidst the ruins of aged and demolished houses and newly finished high-rises that dominate Chinese cityscapes. His masochism uniquely represents the destruction of Chinese tradition and nostalgia of disappearing rituals.

DF2 Gallery
314 N. Crescent Heights Blvd -Los Angeles

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